Playing with Fire
by Moonlight and Ashes
Summary: I remember something the Dauntless used to say. "Don't play with fire unless you want to get burned." Do I want to get burned? Teetering on the edge between life and death after Tris's death, Tobias must make a decision that changes his life, forever.


**Playing with Fire**

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 **Disclaimer: Plot, me. Characters, Veronica Roth. Unfortunately. Because I would have liked to snatch up Tris before the end of Allegiant.**

 **Spoilers for Allegiant. Read at your own risk! Also, this contains some darker themes, it is rated T for a reason.**

 **A/N: All right, all right, quit yelling at me. I know I'm supposed to be updating This Modern World, but this was a prompt by my bestie XiuBaozi which I couldn't resist.**

 **XiuBaozi, lots of love and hope you like it!**

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It is winter in the faraway city of Chicago, and the wind is bitterly cold, howling through the streets, forcing its way into sleek glass skyscrapers and squat country houses alike.

Snow is falling, but it is not the kind of snow that falls softly without a sound; no, it is the kind of snow that stings and burns and scorches your skin; the kind of snow that is like fire.

There is only one person in sight, wearing all black and running across the stretches of empty pavement with a purposeful urgency.

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I can feel the pound of my feet against the pavement and although it is freezing outside, I don't feel the cold. Adrenaline courses in my veins, pumping itself through my body, warming the bitter chill until all I can feel is emptiness.

The world around me is in shades of black and gray and white, as if someone has peeled off all the color in it, as if all the bright places are dead and gone.

And maybe it is true, because without her there is no bright place for me, anywhere.

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I don't think, I just run. There is nowhere to go, nothing to see, I tell myself. But somehow, after an hour, or maybe two or three, I am at the Hancock building where the Dauntless used to go ziplining.

Graffiti still stains the walls, but even the boisterous colors that are the signature of Dauntless seem to lack their usual vividness.

The burn in my muscles as I run up flight after flight of dark stairs is a welcome distraction. I lose track of how many stairs I climb, and time ticks by unheeded.

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After what I think is a long time, although I can't be sure, I am on the roof of the building. There is a pile of black slings in the corner and the zipline stretches far away into the distance until it is only a string.

I stand at the very edge of the roof. The snow has stopped, but the wind is still there, whipping my clothes and lifting my hair. I am dizzyingly high up, so high that the marsh below looks like a child's puzzle, pieces of dark blue and muted green and earthy brown fitting together. I should be frightened, but for the first time, I am not.

It is lonely and beautiful up here, with only the wind's howls to accompany me. I think about how easy it would be to shift my weight, tip forward on the ledge I am standing on. Tip forward until there is nothing more to support me, and only emptiness in front of me. Emptiness that matches the void in my heart.

And then perhaps the world that welcomes me at the bottom will be better than the one that I am here in now. Perhaps it will be full of the bright places that I am unable to see.

I stare down, even though it leaves me lightheaded and unbalanced. Will she be waiting down there for me?

I can imagine her reaction, just barely, the memory already blurred by time. But I don't step away. Because it is worth it, all of it, if I can get one more. Just one more, of anything, with her.

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I remember something the Dauntless used to say. _Don't play with fire unless you want to get burned._

Do I want to get burned?

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The minutes pass by and I am still there, poised on the edge, uncertain. It would be so easy, so achingly _easy_ to do what I am trying to do. To lean forward and let gravity do the rest. But something stops me.

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The wind is dying down and the sky calming into a softer shade of blue when I see them. Three ravens, flying together in a loose V-shape. Dark against the lightening sky.

It is like a brush of her hand, her way of telling me, _No._ It is just a whisper of who she used to be. Of the flame that kindled her spirit.

When the wind rustles past the building again, this time low and gentle, I can hear the echoes of her voice as she tells me why she had gotten the ravens.

 _Three birds. One for each member of the family I left behind._

And finally, I step off the ledge I am standing on; not forwards, into the open emptiness, but backwards, onto solid roof.

I look down at the stretch of marsh and buildings, and I realize how blind I was. The bright places had never disappeared. I had only refused to look at them.

As I make my way back down the Hancock building, I allow myself to say her name, which she will never hear. One last time.

 _Tris._

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 **A/N: Drop me a review :)**

 **Cheers,**

 **Moonlight and Ashes**


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